


Sets

by CaptainDude (HandbagMurder)



Category: South Park
Genre: College AU, Gym AU, Implied past self-harm (Brief and vague), Longhair!Tweek, M/M, More Tags Coming Soon, Short!!Tweek/Tall!Craig, Size Differance, Trainer!Tweek, top!Tweek
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-29
Updated: 2016-08-28
Packaged: 2018-07-10 22:33:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7011061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HandbagMurder/pseuds/CaptainDude
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>ALT. TITLE: The heart is the strongest muscle of them all. </p><p>After using up all of the student-levy-funded counselling appointments afforded him by the university health center, accomplished couch potato Craig Tucker is referred to physical therapist and boxing trainer Y. F. Tweak in order to improve his diet, well being and lifestyle. </p><p>COMING SOON: the sexy results.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Activated Almonds

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Punk_mit_Keks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Punk_mit_Keks/gifts).



> This fic is not only incredibly self-indulgent (did somebody say long haired tweek???), its based on a prompt by the wonderfully supportive Punk_Mit_Keks, whose critique and feedback on my writing has been instrumental in helping me improve my skills over the past six months or so. I hope this fill is along the lines of what you were looking for - i only wish i could have posted it complete! :3
> 
> The request was for a story which was built around tweek as an accomplished boxer, as he takes the time to learn to box in Tweek vs. Craig. It was a challenge to pull this together, and i said i wouldnt post it until it was all complete, but i was so excited about having completed the first chapter that i guess i couldnt help myself? and now ive posted part, i suppose i am obliged to write the rest as soon as possible. i probably need that incentive tbh - im terribly organised at the best of times.

It was a cold Thursday afternoon in Boston, but Craig Tucker of dorm 217 in the tech college dorms didn’t notice. As of two pm that day, he was officially on his weekend, and for Craig the weekend was really nothing more than three entire and uninterrupted days of lying in bed watching the X-Files. As such, it wasn’t so important for him to pay attention to what was happening outside. He had two packets of Doritos, 24 cans of diet coke and three bags of biscuits, and hopefully all of this food would last him until Monday morning. He didn’t want to have to walk to the supermarket on Saturday in the rain.

He sat down on his bed in his boxers and a too-big hoodie, and after placing his laptop carefully on his pillow he checked to see if he had any messages on his phone.

He didn’t.

Ever since he and his friends had gone to separate colleges, he very rarely spoke to any of them anymore.

He sighed, allowing himself to feel a little glum as he waited for his laptop to boot, and in the corner of the room the fan heater he had purchased for $15 from a junk shop droned quietly. Far away, he could hear the sounds of other people living and moving and chattering through the walls and this was some small comfort, he supposed. Even if he didn’t like his fellow residents, at least they gave him some sense of social accountability. They weren’t just going to sit back and let him listen to movies and music and procrastinate his assignments at maximum volume, and Craig appreciated that because as annoying as it could sometimes prove to be, was nice to still have some kind of structure to belong to. A role to adhere to, even if that role was anti-social and silent.

With this thought in mind, Craig realised he was probably going to have to plug in his headphones if he was going to be watching anything today – he had already had an altercation that week with the resident of 215 over the volume of his three am YouTube video watching, and didn’t want to make too many enemies only half-way through his first semester. Without taking his eyes off the boot screen on his PC, Craig groped for his headphones on his side table amongst dirty mugs and crumpled worksheets, accidentally knocking a handful of pens and USBs to the floor. His earphones were tangled snugly around the base of his reading lamp - how they had ended up there no one would ever know – and to remove them properly Craig realised with a sinking stomach that he was more than likely going to have to get up.

How annoying. He had only just finished sitting down.

The flimsy bed creaked as he crawled to the edge of his mattress, his cell phone sliding down over his leg and coming to rest next to his thigh. Muttering tiredly under his breath, Craig teased the earphones loose from the knot, which insisted on making more of a nuisance of itself as the seconds ticked on. Eventually the cursed things began to loose, and momentarily triumphant Craig yanked them free. They swung backwards at him with a surprising force, almost striking him in the face, and sent a few coffee cards and a folded assignment mark sheet fluttering down into the space between his side table and his bed. For a moment, Craig considered just leaving them there where they had fallen, but then he remembered that that particular assignment mark sheet was supposed to inform his work on a latter assignment and so, it would be in his best interests to have the thing on hand.

He reached down into the gap and felt around, touching dust and a sock and a few forgotten pens before finally finding a corner of paper under his fingertips. But when he pulled the paper out, it was not his assignment sheet or even one of the coffee cards he had dropped.

It was a business card. Black on both sides with a name in plain font on the back. The name read Y. F. TWEAK. The sub heading beneath the name and above the contact email address and mobile number said PERSONAL TRAINER & BOXING COACH.

Craig wrinkled his nose, trying to remember where and when he might possibly have acquired this. It took him a moment, and then he recalled his counselling appointment a few weeks ago. The last of a course of three which had been funded by the student services levy his parents had paid to the school.

 _Seeing as you can’t afford further sessions,_ she had said, _I advise you look into some kind of alternative treatment. Perhaps some regular exercise in conjunction with your medication will help alleviate your symptoms._

Craig had been mildly insulted by the suggestion, and he was just as insulted by it again now, even as he recalled her explanation as to why she thought this particular suggestion would be appropriate to make to someone like him. Someone whose idea of a good time consisted of junk food and 90s serial programming, and not having to leave his room for three days.

 _I know this person is very good._ She had given him the card out of the little business card holder on her desk, and Craig had surveyed it with a discomfort that made the back of his mouth taste kind of gross. _He was a client of mine a few years back, and he found that training was somewhat helpful for him in his healing process._

Healing process.

Just remembering her saying it made Craig regret ever having spent three hours of his life in that office. His counsellor at high school had been more helpful, and that man had been a complete idiot.

Craig rolled his eyes and set the card down on his side table, next to a copy of _A short history of time_ and half eaten chocolate bar. Deciding he didn’t care about the assignment that much, he made himself comfortable on his bed and plugged his headphones in.

He pressed play.

Yet no more than twenty minutes later, Craig found himself pausing the video and reaching for the business card again. Something about it seemed to be irking him, sticking it in his mind the way a popcorn kernel sometimes gets stuck between teeth. He frowned, turned it over and looked at the back, before turning it back and looking at the name again.

  1. F. TWEAK



What a strange name.

Craig set his phone down on his belly and lay prone on his back, holding the car up to the ceiling and closing one eye. It still looked the same, even from a distance, and when he opened his closed eye and closed the other one there was still nothing on it which seemed changed. The angle was different, but that was it. It was still the same slim piece of cardboard. The white letters in the middle presented concepts he was well familiar with. Self improvement. Motivation. Getting fit...

Craig dropped his arm to his side and glanced beside him, where his open bag of Doritos and packet of cookies sat. He had already drunk a whole can of soda in twenty minutes, and knew he would probably make it through another two today. His stomach growled uncomfortably, and with a little sigh Craig rolled over onto his side. His phone slipped off him again, over his waist, and there was a fleeting sense of regret which passed through him. He couldn’t exactly put his finger on why.

It was Thursday evening - the end of the week. He had junk food and TV and nothing to do besides waste time and sleep. There was nothing unusual, nothing abnormal... This was his regular and established weekly tradition.

But did Craig really _want_ to do this all again?

He read the number on the business card once more.

He reached for his phone.

...

He went to the 24 hour gym down the road, at 1pm the following Wednesday afternoon. He had thought that picking midday Wednesday would ensure there would be no-one there, but he realised as he stood by the entrance in his sweatpants and knitted jumper that he might have been better to come late at night.

He would be sure to arrange such a thing in future if possible.

The gym was an alien looking space, filled with people older than him and significantly more confident about what they were doing there. Even the forty year olds in grey tank tops and sweatbands looked comfortable, riding the stationary bicycles and filling their water bottles at the fountain by the changing rooms. Women in lycra ran on the treadmills by the window – large flat screen TVs played MTV while well toned strangers stretched on yoga mats against the back wall. The air in the gym was cold, thanks to the large industrial fans on the ceiling, and Craig was glad he wore sweats even though he had been embarrassed by his lack of appropriate gear when he had headed out of his room earlier that morning.

A large guy doing free-weights by the mirrors caught Craig staring at him, and embarrassed Craig turned his face away, trying to find somewhere to look that wasn’t totally intimidating. He was certain these people could tell he felt out of place here.

Craig pulled his phone out of his pocket and checked his messages, but there hadn’t been any word from Y.F. Tweak since they had first arranged a meeting the weekend before. He unlocked his screen and checked he had the right time and location, and he was at least vindicated in that he did. The trainer had said he worked here, and that he would be here all day, and Craig wondered if maybe he had forgotten or something. When he thought that he almost convinced himself to leave. The realisation that this was fucking dumb, that he was wasting his time and he couldn’t do this if he tried, threatened to surface, and sucking a deep breath between his teeth he closed his eyes.

Don’t think about how everyone was looking at him. Don’t think about how stupid he was, to be Craig Tucker with no skills and no motivation – unlikely to achieve anything of note in his entire stupid life. He had been an idiot to think he could do his. He regretted it in a way that was slowly spreading and utterly despairable. When he opened his eyes, he was preparing himself to turn around and walk right out of the building.

He wouldn’t tell anyone about this. He would immediately force himself to forget it ever happened. He would go back home, and open a box of pop tarts, and never attempt anything this dumb ever again.

“Hey there,”

His train of thought was interrupted by a male voice – one which sounded tentative but gentle, and so soft that Craig might not have heard it if he wasn’t feeling particularly aware of everything around him. “Are you waiting for someone?”

“Uh, yeah, actually. I am.”

When he turned, Craig found the voice belonged to a man about his age and half his height. Although that may have been a slight exaggeration. The stranger was blond haired and green eyed, and he wore a thin Adidas windbreaker with rugby shorts and sneakers. Craig thought he was handsome, albeit in need of a haircut – he wore his hair tied up in a bun, and held a clipboard with a pen tightly against his chest.

“Who are you after?”

“... Why do you care?”

It came out before he thought about it, and immediately he felt regret because the strangers face took on an expression of such horror that he may as well have just pulled down his pants and taken a shit right there in the middle of the gym floor instead. What a fucking asshole... sometimes Craig even disgusted himself at how bad he was at answering even the most civilized of questions.

“I’m sorry.” He mumbled, a pathetic kind of apology, and turned away. “Ignore me. I’m just supposed to be meeting with a trainer and I guess I’m nervous.”

The boy took a moment to recover, before asking.

“... Which trainer was that?”

Craig frowned.

“I think the name was Tweak.”

The stranger’s windbreaker rustled as he switched his clipboard into his left arm, and thrust out his hand with a little too much force to be relaxed.

“That’s me.” He reported, sounding slightly embarassed. Craig didn’t know why. It wasn’t like _he’d_ been the one to say something utterly stupid and rude as hell to the person he had arranged to meet with. “I’m Tweek. You must be Craig. You’re uh... you’re a bit taller than I had expected?”

Craig looked down at his hand the boy was offering as though he wasn’t really sure what to do with it.

“And you’re short.”

Tweek dropped his hand and Craig could see the muscle in his neck twitch as he tensed his jaw. His eyes fluttered, and for a moment Craig though he might have been angry, but then he sighed and ran his palm wearily over the side of his pinkening face.

“Cool. Yes. Awesome. This is going great. But whatever. It’s nice to meet you, Craig. I hope we have a successful assessment today.”

Craig had to admit he felt a little bit guilty. He probably shouldn’t go around pointing out people’s heights. God knew he had _hated_ being side eyed and ogled by children, who had obviously never seen anyone taller than a mannequin in their life. He ignored the creeping flush spreading over his own cheeks, and grunted.

“Sure. I guess.”

It was an awkward start. Craig kind of wished as Tweek regarded him that he could turn back the clock two minutes, and try that whole exchange again. Eventually, the trainer sighed once more, and jerked his head back in the direction of the offices by reception.

“Let’s go to the office so we can talk about your goals and stuff.”

Craig was relieved that it sounded like he wouldn’t have to do any exercise just yet.

He nodded, following when his trainer turned and began walking back towards the gym entrance. The receptionist smiled at them when they passed, and Craig managed a tight smile back because she was an amiable enough looking girl, with tumbling curls and round cheeks and confident brown eyes.

“New client?”

She addressed the question to both of them for some reason, and Tweek nodded, gesturing to Craig that he should hurry up into the office behind the desk, next to the vending machine. Craig noticed that all of the products in the glass front case were high in protein and low in carb, and this made him feel strangely intimidated.

“Yeah. I uh, I might email you through a contract to print off when we’re done if that’s okay?” He looked at the receptionist questioningly, as though he wasn’t sure if it was his place to be bossing her around, but the receptionist nodded with a certain degree of amusement and told him that yes. That was fine. She would print it off as soon as she got them.

This seemed to visibly relax him. He followed Craig into the office, and closed the door behind him once inside.

“Take a seat.” The boy said, gesturing loosely around. Craig did as instructed and dropped ungracefully into a rickety computer chair, facing the visitor’s side of a highly disorganised desk. “Oh geez. I’m Sorry about the mess. I’ve been kind of busy lately so I never got around to cleaning up.”

He rounded the back of Craig’s seat, and briskly started picking up a few stray mugs from the edge of his desk. They clanked together as he hooked them on his fingers one by one, and there was something strangely endearing about watching him do it. Maybe it was the flustered, self-conscious way he moved? Craig could relate – he watched his progress in silence, eying the patterns on all of the cups and wondering why he had so many loaded on such a small desk. He did seem to have the manner of someone who drunk an awful lot of caffeinated beverages…

Craig’s thoughts were rudely interrupted though, when his host went and did something so incredibly ridiculous he couldn’t possibly have _intended_ to do it - intending to do it would have been almost laughably stupid.

He threw all of them into the wastepaper bin by the filing cabinet. He didn’t even pause to think twice. Craig jumped, startled by the resultant cacophony. The noise also seemed to give his trainer quite a fright.

“Oh! Jesus Christ!”

Craig stared in disbelief, slightly loose jawed as the boy looked to the bin wide eyed, and then turned his gaze down at his guilty hands in confusion.

 “Oh fuck. Oh my god. Oh my god I’m sorry. I always forget about the ceramic cups. Every _fucking_ time.”

Peevish now, and still blushing, the trainer bustled over to the bin and picked out one of the four thrown cups and examined the large chip in the rim of it. He bent again, and studied a large shard of porcelain which had once been a part of a floral teacup. Craig had kind of been of the opinion that that cup was ugly anyway.

Screwing up his nose in distaste, Tweek tossed the shard back into the bin and decided to salvage the chipped mug in its entirety. He tucked it behind his clipboard and sat down in the computer chair on the other side of the desk. The chair creaked under his weight as he did, and Craig regarded him again as if for the first time. After all of that, he couldn’t help but see him slightly differently. Craig was suddenly quite intrigued by him in all his strangeness.

“You apologise a lot,” Craig observed. “It’s okay. I do that sometimes as well.”

“Really?”

“... No.”

He had lied without meaning to. The trainer blinked at him, uncomprehending, and then clearly under the impression Craig was mocking him he averted his eyes.

“Yeah,” He mumbled, placing the clipboard and mug in the fractional clear space on the desk. “Okay. Moving on. I guess I still haven’t properly introduced myself. My name is Tweek, and I’m going to walk you through a short orientation today. You’re the first client I’ve had for a while so please excuse me if I uh... if I’m a bit rusty.” He made a vague gesture with his hand. Craig didn’t really understand what it meant, but he nodded.

“Okay. Sure.”

Now they were looking at each other face to face, Craig was becoming aware that his earlier judgement about Tweek being handsome was actually quite under-appreciative. Craig had never seen such beautifully coloured eyes in his life, and his lips and cheekbones were of the calibre that Calvin Klein would tout on city billboards. Excepting his nose, which bore a kink as though he might have broken it at some time in his life, Y. F. Tweak was an exceptionally attractive man. Craig felt a ticklish sensation in his stomach when he turned pale green eyes directly on him. His eyelashes were short and sparse and very blond.

“So uhm, why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself and how I can help?”

Tweek swung his desk chair around and poked the power button on the screen of his computer to turn it on. Craig watched his fingers move as he keyed in his password, and he typed very fast but Craig was still able to read the combination of letters and numbers he keyed in to log in.

_Atlantis1993_

Craig took a deep breath, and tried to remember the answer he had already practiced for this inevitable and terrifying question.

“I’m a student at tech, and the counsellor suggested I see you so I could do some exercise or something like that? I dunno. I’m not sure why I’m here really, I guess I just figured it was worth a try.”

He hoped that answer kind of conveyed his unease with his decision to try this, as well as his lack of confidence in his ability to see it through. Tweek nodded shortly and opened a template on his desktop – he entered Craig’s name in the box that said CLIENT and highlighted the following box, which said ‘GOALS’. The air in the office seemed dry and crackling with tension, and it made the hair on Craig’s arms stand on end.

“I see. Do you have any goals you are hoping to achieve by training?”

Craig shrugged, confused as to what he meant by this. He hadn’t prepared an answer for the question so he thought it would probably be better if he didn’t open his mouth. Tweek arched an eyebrow, and lifted his hands back of the computer keys.

“Weight loss?” he asked, then paused in thought. “Maybe not. Muscle gain? Posture improvement? Diet advice?”

Again, Craig shrugged. Tweek frowned, and then turned and entered a very short sentence in the box.

_General mood and wellbeing, improvement of._

“Do you exercise regularly?”

“Does fucking count?”

A small furrow appeared between Tweek’s eyebrows, and he gave Craig a sideways sort of look, but he replied as though this had left him unfazed.

“Sure.”

“Then no. Still nothing.”

This earned a tiny twitch at the corners of Tweek’s mouth, and Craig felt a swell of gratification in him. Like in those moments he half-smiled at the clerk at the corner store, and the clerk in the corner store smiled back. The tension in the air lessened a little, and Craig was glad. Craig decided that this guy was okay. He didn’t hate him. Tweek wrote ‘nil’ in the box that said ‘Current exercise regimen’, and scrolled down.

“What’s your diet like?”

“Microwave ramen.”

“And your height and weight?”

Craig shrugged. Tweek flickered his eyes sideways at him questioningly for a moment, and then gave in.

“You’re not being very helpful.” He observed.

Craig’s instant reaction was to be highly offended, but there was something about the way he said it, so tired and matter of fact, that Craig almost couldn’t feel _anything_ particularly strong in response to it. Instead, he found himself oddly accepting. Tweek was telling the truth. He wasn’t being very helpful at all, and suddenly finding himself even _more_ ashamed that he had thought to try coming here Craig adverted his eyes.

“Well I don’t know. I’m tall. I’m kinda fat. You’re supposed to be the personal trainer aren’t you?”

“Well, yeah. But I can’t train you if you’re going to be like this. You know that ninety nine percent of your success in training is determined by your approach and attitude?”

Craig did not.

“I’m only here because the counsellor said I should be.”

“Well, why did she say that?”

“I don’t know. She said she recommended you to all her clients who would benefit from ‘exercise therapy’.” He made the little air quotes and hazard a glance back to meet Tweek’s eye. Disconcertingly, he found when he did that Tweek was studying him more intensely than he had so far, a little twist turning down the corner of his mouth as if he was concerned for him.

“Do you think you will benefit from exercise therapy?” he asked, with hesitation.

Craig paused for a moment, to think about that. The longer Tweek looked at him, the more self-conscious he became, and the more self-conscious he became, the harder it was to think about what he should be saying. Eventually, he managed a response that seemed adequate enough.

“Well, I guess I’m here to find out.”

...

 

He showered for the first time in a week that evening, shampooing his hair and even sparing a few silent moments to stand under the showerhead and watch the soapy runoff spiral like a whirlpool down the drain. He felt okay – probably on account of the fact that he had succeeded in leaving his house today – and he thought that even though it was after seven, he might be able to work a little bit on his research proposal when he got out. He had a big essay on bioethics coming up, and should probably get started as soon a possible.

Craig shut off the shower and stuck his hand out from behind the curtain, groping around for the towel he had set on top of the toilet cistern. He succeeded in finding it, pulled it back inside the shower, and after patting down his face he wrapped it around his waist before stepping out.

He didn’t really want to risk seeing himself in the foggy mirror. Even the vague shape of his legs made him uncomfortable, and he tried to direct his mind elsewhere as he hurried through drying his thighs. Spending too much time focusing on how his bare legs looked tended to upset him. They reminded him of stupid mistakes and hangovers in the morning, and of bad breakups and nights that seemed to never end.

His early teens were easily the worst days of his life. He regretted that he still had souvenirs to remind him.

He cast aside the towel and picked up his underpants from the floor. Once they were on, he pulled on his sweats, and only then did he turn and wipe the bathroom mirror down.

Craig’s reflection was uninspiring. It almost boarded on below average at times. He combed his hair out, and brushed his teeth, and only once he was finished this did he lean close enough to check his skin. The pimples in his hairline and the blackheads on the end of his nose seemed to get bigger every day. For some reason, as he examined his chin for spots, he thought of Tweek. The guy had had really good skin. Maybe Craig was just noticing this because it had been _months_ since he had talked to a guy who wasn’t a fellow resident. Maybe he was just noticing because it had been even longer since he was close enough to a guy to see details as particular as the texture of his skin.

Flushing, Craig stood back from the mirror and looked away. He couldn’t bear to make eye contact with himself when he thought of that kind of thing, because seriously. What kind of a creep was he even being? Not only was it weird to think that way, it was utterly deluded to think that a _professional_ , someone as handsome as Tweek, would ever see anything desirable in Craig. Craig was too lanky. He was standoffish and plain. He had brown eyes and brown hair and he couldn’t do anything of note except multiply several digit numbers in his head.

But then, Tweek _had_ been a little weird.

As Craig dried his back and pulled a shirt on, he remembered the rest of their meeting and tried to recall the little things that had happened and made him wonder why. Why he was doing this. Why _Tweek_ was doing this. Was he the only one who felt as though the whole situation was slightly wrong? Tweek had measured his body closely, taking accounts of his height, and then his weight, and testing his flexibility in a way that had made his hair stand on end. Tweek had asked him more questions, prying gently at his psyche until he felt so tender and coerced that he had no choice but to relinquish his secrets.

He didn’t feel that good about his life. He hadn’t felt that good about his life for a long time. And telling Tweek about the way he always felt like people were side-eying him when he lost his breath climbing up the dormitory stairs only made him feel even worse.

And Tweek listened. He nodded. With his head cocked and his lips set into a little frown, he made notes and finally when it was all over and Craig was exhausted with how much effort that had taken, and disgusted with how much he had unintentionally revealed, Tweek had handed him a print off of his proposed contract. An ordinary looking piece of paper, which detailed a training and diet plan, and came with the reassurance that there was no pressure to accept such a proposition.

If he wasn’t interested in partaking, Tweek will totally understand.

Craig had thought when he left the gym that he never wanted to set eyes on the uncomfortably attractive Tweek ever again, but now he had had time to mull it over he wasn’t so sure. When he shuffled out of the bathroom and down the hall towards his dorm, he couldn’t help but fantasize about what it might be like to feel energetic. To walk down the hall with his shoulders down and his head high and not loose his breath when he woke up late one morning and had to jog to class.

That would be nice. It seemed impossible. And yet when he got back to his room and sat down on his bed, the piece of paper with the word TRAINING CONTRACT on top of it was right there on his side table where he left it.

He dropped his towel by his feet and picked the contract up, letting his eyes scan over it again. He had read it so many times he knew it off by heart.

Only twelve dollars a week to train him, Tweek had said. He’d give him a discount because he had been referred by the counsellor. Craig hadn’t really been paying attention when Tweek had told him how training had completely changed _his_ life – he had been too busy staring at the mug-filled waste paper bin and wondering whether Tweek would leave them there, or wait until Craig was gone to take them out. Why did Tweek keep his office in such a state? Why did he keep twisting a loose lock of hair between his fingers when he was talking?

Despite his soft voice, he had really seemed to struggle to keep his gaze fixed on one place. Perhaps he was nervous to be meeting Craig for the first time? Or more concerningly, perhaps he had noticed Craig trying not to look at him. Perhaps he had noticed that Craig had been attracted despite himself.

God.

Was Craig really that fucking obvious? He hadn’t even realised how lonely he had been until right now.

He groaned and held the contract against his chest, falling against the mattress and lying there, on his back.

After a while of laying in one place, despite thinking he should do his schoolwork, Craig eventually found himself some rest.

...

“Are you relaxed?”

“I suppose so.”

“Okay. Well, I’m sorry in advance, but this is probably going to hurt.”

Craig thought it couldn’t possibly have hurt any more than being here hurt his dignity. Even though he had spent all morning preparing himself, he still couldn’t force himself not to care that his only gym appropriate clothes were sweatpants and sneakers, and he still couldn’t ignore the presence of every other gym attendant within his immediate vicinity. No matter where he looked, he couldn’t forget that he didn’t feel like he belonged here, and everyone in the entire gym knew it.

But He was wrong.

Oh god yes, he was wrong.

Tweek sat behind him cross legged, his left hand cradling the right side of Craig’s neck in a way that made Craig’s whole body feel alert, and attentive and fluttery. His left hand gently felt around on the other side, examining the zone from the nape of Craig’s neck down to the place his shoulder met his collar bone. It didn’t take long for his finger to locate a point in Craig’s shoulder, hard and short and locked into place, and once he found it he drove his thumb into it so hard that Craig’s vision swam in front of him – the whole room seemed to flicker like a picture on a TV with poor reception. All the people exercising on machines started to distort and waiver like he was seeing them through watery glass. He inhaled sharply, and immediately jerked his body away.

“Dude!”

“I told you it was going to hurt.”

Tweek looked a little bit pissed, his brow furrowed in a shallow crease and the corners of his mouth turned downwards, but in his eyes and in his voice he sounded like he might have wanted to apologise. Or laugh. Or both.

“Is this necessary?” Craig asked, rubbing the side of his neck and trying hard not to be too annoyed about it. “I thought I was here to exercise?”

“Getting well isn’t just about exercise,” Tweek said, and for a moment Craig thought he sounded like his counsellor. Just the tone of his voice. The way he chose his words... it was a little bit unsettling, but Craig chose to overlook it.

“So what is it then?”

Tweek shrugged, like he really didn’t know, and hooked a loose strand of hair back behind his ear.

“Wellbeing. Well rested. A good diet and waking up in the morning with no aches or pains. You need to stretch more Craig. And eat less noodles. You can’t just go to the gym and run on a machine for an hour and expect to feel better.”

“... Well that’s good. If I ran on a machine for an hour I’d probably die.”

He dropped his hand and turned his face away, looking to the people doing cardio on the machines on the far wall. They all looked happy enough, sweating away and working out and listening to their music on their iPhones. For a moment, Craig felt a twinge of regret. The sort characteristic of contemplating impossibilities. Even if he got up right now, walked over there and mounted a stationary bicycle, he knew he would probably go into cardiac arrest before he got through fifteen minutes of it. His body was like a car engine on a cold morning – stiff and sluggish and full of rattles and groans. Not for the first time, he felt far, far older than his age. He wondered if he was wasting his life.

 “Not even I can do that.” Tweek assured him, but a brief glance over his shoulder, to study him and his well constructed body, did not leave Craig convinced this was true. He thought this disbelief was visible in his eyes, but Tweek did not address it. Instead he cocked his head and made a vague gesture, like he was asking Craig to turn back around so he could resume his torturous prodding.

“Are there any other stretches we can do?” Craig asked him bluntly. “Pinch of death isn’t really my thing.”

Although he probably would have gone along with it, if Tweek had insisted, he should have been suspicious when he immediately did not.

“Yeah. Sure. I have a whole lot of stuff we can do to loosen you up. Hang on a minute.”

He stood, and was hurrying across the gym towards his office before Craig could even make sense of that disconcerting word choice.

 _Loosen him up_?!

Craig’s mind took a short turn down a very inappropriate alley. He tried very hard to rectify this while his trainer was gone, but found it significantly more difficult when Tweek returned with a skipping rope and a mysterious foam tube under his arm.

“I’m going to tie you to the barre now.” He said, in his gentle, shy voice. “Your leg I mean. If that’s okay?”

“Uh... excuse me?”

Tweek jerked his head in the direction of the barre, attached to the wall perpendicular to the mirror. “There. I’m going to tie you, with this.” He held out the skipping rope in polite offering. “It might feel a bit weird at first. But it’s good for you.”

Weird was an understatement.

“... But why?”

“I’m going to stretch your hips.” Tweek dropped the foam tube. Craig’s legs suddenly felt like gel beneath him.

 “Are you serious?”

“Yes.” He was starting to sound a little impatient. “Please lie down on your belly on the mat.”

Craig, much to his shock and embarrassment, did as he was told. He probably couldn’t have sat there upright much longer anyway.

 As he lay there, face down on the mat and concentrating on Tweek kneeling down beside his ankles, he listened to all the questions racing around in his head and struggled to understand what was happening. This couldn’t possibly be what he thought it could be? No. No way. There were too many people in the gym! He and Tweek hardly even knew each other. He was just over reacting because this whole experience was alien and raw and new. It was as simple as that.

And yet, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going on. It was only once Tweek had started yoking his right ankle to the barre that Craig started to understand that there was probably a much more reasonable explanation for this than what he was thinking. And when he started coming to terms with this, Craig found himself feeling very stupid indeed.

“Does it hurt?” Tweek asked him, testing the tension on the jump rope and lifting Craig’s leg a few inches up off the ground. Craig shook his head, because it didn’t hurt, but he didn’t want to lift his face from the floor in case Tweek saw how much he was blushing, and suddenly realised exactly the kind of filthy and shameful thing he had been thinking.

He really needed to pull himself together. This was only their first session. Tweek probably wasn’t even interested.

“Not really.”

“Okay. Well in that case, I need you to drag yourself forward until it does.”

Tweek stood, and his body moved smoothly and silently as he rounded Craig’s front.

“Let me know once you get into a spot where it’s painful.”

Obedient, confused, and still embarrassed, Craig obliged him.

As it turned out, trying to crawl away from a barre that ones leg is bound to was not a very comfortable experience. It didn’t take long for the pull to start hurting, and once Craig stopped moving because of the pain he was shocked to feel hands behind his shoulder blades, pushing him forwards and harder into the ground.

“Exhale as I push forward.” Tweek told him. And Craig was too shocked by the contact to protest. He did his best to follow instruction, and as he slid a few more impossible inches further away from the barre, he almost vomited from the pain that spread through his hips and down the insides of his thigh. It felt as though Tweek was trying to unhinge him! He had never had a dislocated hip before, but he imagined it felt something like this.

Tweek held him there, even longer than it took him to catch his breath and moan loudly, and the ache kept spreading and blossoming into hot, fleshy flowers in his muscles and under his flushing skin. He was starting to feel dizzy, overwhelmed by the throbbing, and the steady ebb and flow like burning waves all through his hip joints and bones.

“Oh _fuck_ Tweek!”

“Is it painful?”

Craig nodded, his eyes watering as he buried his face into the mat, trying to breathe and almost forgetting because of the agony. It hurt. It hurt so much. And his whole body was starting to tremble in awe of the pain. Tweek’s hands pressed firmer against his shoulders, and his palms through Craig’s t-shirt were warm. They seemed to be the only thing on Craig’s body that wasn’t quivering, and the touch sent strange and unprovoked feelings of pleasure down the core of his spine.

“Just a little longer, and you will be fine. Three more seconds. Breathe with me?”

Tweek moved his hands, bringing one to the small of Craig’s back just below his tailbone and the other to the front of his elevated thigh. Craig almost passed out at the touch, his chest tightening and his palms growing clammy as all his blood flooded his lower body. His ears pricked, clinging to every careful syllable from that mouth.

“Three.” His voice said, and it was so steady, and soft, and there was a moment in which Craig slipped backwards a fraction of an inch on the slippery mat surface but he caught himself, straining against the pain to drag himself forward an inch or two again. He could feel the nod of approval in Tweek’s voice as he counted down.

“Two,” the hand on the small of Craig’s back caressed the waistband of his track pants, and the one at the front of his thigh lifted to test the tension on the back of his stretched knee. Craig screwed his eyes shut, dizzy and nauseous, his whole body hammering with his racing heart.

“ _One_.”

Tweek moved the hand at Craig’s waistband to his ankle so deftly it barely took any time at all. He yanked the knot in the skip rope, releasing Craig’s ankle from its bond, and when he did Craig sucked a breath into his lungs so deep he almost got high on the oxygen blasting through his brain. The hand at the back of his leg moved to the front, holding Craig’s knee and gently lowering it down, but Craig didn’t notice because he was too busy trembling, flushing hot ad cold like he had just been shot full of adrenaline.

His dick was hard in the front of his sweatpants. He hoped Tweek wouldn’t ask him to sit up, in case he noticed.

“You did really well.” Tweek told him kindly. “Most people start begging for mercy around the seven second mark.”

“... How long was that?” Craig asked him, completely dazed.

“Almost twenty,” Tweek replied. “You surprised me. I thought you wouldn’t last five.”

Craig felt wrecked, but not wrecked enough to not feel smug about this. He grinned into the mat, and sniggered quietly.

“Nice.” He said, and Tweek hummed.

“We still need to stretch out your other leg, yet.”

...

As it transpired, Craig preferred meeting Tweek in the evenings than during the day. Although it was dark outside by then, and there were always more people clogging up the machines, there was something strangely comforting about stopping by the gym after class and actually, being at the gym wasn’t so bad when he had Tweek beside him telling him what to do. Maybe it was because it was a way of focusing his attention. Maybe it was because Tweek’s kind manner made him feel safe and shielded from the surveillance of others. Whatever it was, Craig surprised himself with how quickly he settled in to training. How long he actually _could_ jog when he put his mind to it. And how much he could lift if he pushed himself really hard.

“Alright, I’m going to get you to do the pull-up machine next.”

“The what machine?”

Craig had just gotten comfortable with the leg press. Tweek mumbled something distractedly in reply and noted something down on his little clipboard. Craig coughed and lowered his weight with his legs, keen to avoid making the loud, awkward crash that he had the first time when he just let go of his muscle tension entirely.

“Sorry, what?”

“I said, the pull-up machine.” Tweek looked up from his clipboard and smiled at him politely. Craig felt the odd little flutter of butterflies in his chest. “It’s that one there. Where you hold it and y’know. Pull up.”

He mimed the action, and Craig frowned, not-so-secretly doubting he could perform such a feat this early in his training. Last week, he had lifted sixty kilos with his legs and he hadn’t been able to sit comfortably on the toilet for three days. The possibility of him lifting his entire bodyweight already was ridiculous.

He climbed off the leg press and edged towards the pull up machine, a formidable looking contraption with a small stool helpfully provided alongside, in order to study the offset weights, pulleys, and chords which made it up. It really did look like some kind of a torture device. Not like the tame, relatively straight forward leg press at all. Craig thought he might have happily remained doing leg exercises for the rest of his life - they were by far the strongest part of his body and the leg machines, while taxing, were not impossible.

“... I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Dude. You’ll be fine.” Tweek tapped his pen against his clipboard impatiently, and Craig sighed.

“Let me wipe down the machine?” he said, eyes flicking to the paper towels and disinfectant spray sitting at the station by the drinking fountain. Tweek gestured for him to hurry up, as though he was fully aware the Craig was procrastinating, and feeling a little self-conscious Craig trotted towards the paper towels and machine spray, wet a paper towel enough for him to wipe the machine down, and trotted back.

“You don’t sweat that much.” Tweek commented, as he wiped over the spot where his ass had previously sat. “How are your thighs?”

“Fine.”

His thighs felt a little bit airy and loose. The pain typically wouldn’t set in for another day. Tweek nodded approvingly, and held out his hand to take the sodden paper towel off his hands.

“Pull-ups.” He repeated.

Pull-ups indeed.

Craig couldn’t even manage one.

Eventually, and much to his relief, Tweek relented, offsetting the machine with a few plates and leaving him to lift only a fraction of his weight. The pull-up machine was almost more torturous than the barre stretches. Or actually any of the cruel, agonising contortions Tweek had imposed upon him since. After successfully managing one, Craig thought his arms might have been about to fall off. He distinctly recalled a children’s book he had once read about Winnie the Poo, his arms becoming cemented permanently upright in the air after an extended period holding a balloon. He hoped he would not meet any similar fate today.

“This is hell.” He panted, kneeling on the kneepad and bracing himself against the side of the machine in the aftermath. Tweek cocked his head, almost fondly, and reached his hand up to hover a few inches from the side of Craig’s neck.

“Can I touch you?”

“You absolutely can.”

Tweek’s cheeks coloured just a touch, but he didn’t reply. He nudged Craig upright again and placed his two pointer fingers between his shoulder blades, instead.

“Pull up again. Try and pinch my fingers between your shoulders.”

“Uhm...”

“Just try.” He punctuated the request with a brief increase in pressure on the spot he was touching. Craig felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

The pull up was easier to accomplish this time, although significantly more painful in the muscles at his back. Tweek hummed in satisfaction and removed his fingers.

“From now on, do all your pull ups like that. It’s no use pulling with your arms if you don’t build the strength in your back.”

Craig rolled his eyes, but secretly decided he was probably correct. Although maybe he would be more convinced if Tweek would put his money where his mouth was, for a change. On a whim, he decided to extend the challenge to him.

“If it’s as easy as you say, why don’t you do it then?”

He crawled off the machine and looked at Tweek expectantly. Tweek returned the look first in shock, and then vaguely like he might have been insulted by the suggestion.

“What?”

“You do it. I want to see you do a pull up. For... I dunno. Reference purposes.” He gestured vaguely at the machine, wondering of the other man would oblige him. When he was in primary school, Craig’s challenging attitude had always made him seem like a bully or instigator, and all of his friends had learned over time that it was never in anyone’s best interests to do as he said. But Tweek was a stranger, and Tweek didn’t know it. And besides, there was definitely nothing to be lost in this request.

But there may have been something for Craig to gain.

Tweek heaved a sigh and passed him his clipboard.

“You better pay close attention.” He reached up, loosed his messily arranged hair from its elastic tie, and swept it back off his face and back with practiced ease. Craig wasn’t sure what advantage having neatly tied hair might have had over how it was previous, but he wasn’t complaining. His eyes almost fell out of his head when his trainer hitched himself up on the machine and raised his arms to grab the parallel bars. Through the thin fabric of his sports jacket, Craig could see the contours and muscles in his back.

“Can you take the offset off for me?” he asked, over his shoulder. Craig fumbled with the weights and released the plates, removing any assistance the machine may have provided and leaving Tweek hanging there by his own accord, held in position by his strength against his own weight.

“How many am I doing?”

“Uhm... five?”

He smiled wryly, but didn’t comment. Instead, with fluid and enviable ease, he pulled himself upwards in a singular, easy stroke, until his shoulders were level with the bars. Craig was dumbfounded. He lowered himself with no issue, and repeated the exact same action again. And again. And again. When he did it for the fifth time, Craig was ready to eat the clipboard he was clutching with white knuckled hands to his chest. He wasn’t entirely sure, but he thought he might have just had a religious experience.

“Easy,” Tweek told him, lowering his weight and dismounting the pull-up machine with an air of satisfaction about him. “You will be able to do that too in a couple of months.”

“I will not.”

“You will too,” He twitched his mouth into a shy smile and held his hand out for his clipboard. Craig returned it to him in awed silence. His hands were handsome, but his fingernails were bitten to the quick and Craig wondered briefly why. He recalled the mugs in the wastepaper bin. The stiff, awkward way he had introduced himself on their first day. Tweek kept talking.  

“But until then, you have to keep practicing. And it’d be good if you start a food diary too. When we meet next week I will have a look and I’ll put together a diet plan for you.”

“Okay. Great.”

He got butterflies when he thought of next week. In the two years he’d been in college it was the closest he had ever had to a date.


	2. Leg Day

At the back of the gym, behind the leg machines and a little to the left of the mats by the mirror, a strip of AstroTurf ran parallel to the white painted cinderblock wall. It was about forty feet long, and Craig had only ever seen it used for lunges, but one eventful morning Craig found himself standing there by the emergency exit, kicking awkwardly at the edge of the turf and waiting for Tweek to return with an armful of gear.

Craig was hoping against experience that he wouldn’t return with the jump rope. Or the foam roller. Or worse yet, the tennis ball, which he had taken to pushing against the knots in Craig’s spine. Not because he wasn’t afraid of the pain, but more because Craig was starting to worry about the kinds of things such intense closeness did to him. He used to have the same anxiety about going to the hair dressers – ever since he realised that having his hair washed by a stranger in a salon was uncomfortably pleasurable, he had taken to cutting and styling his hair himself. He wasn’t sure he would ever be able to manipulate his body in the way Tweek did though, and now he had experienced it he wasn’t sure he could ever go back to being tense and stiff like he used to be again.

Waking up in the mornings with no aches or pains was the most peculiar sensation he had ever known. He had been too nervous to mention this to Tweek when he asked how he was progressing though, in case the other boy took it the wrong way, or worse yet he decided it would be wise to do it _more_. Craig was on the brink of humiliating himself as it was. He didn’t feel like he was ready for a weekly hour long intimate massage from what might have been the world’s most handsome man.

Craig jumped when he heard a polite cough from behind him. He spun around just in time to see his trainer dropping a large wooden box on the ground behind him. The kind used for storing foam rollers and yoga mats in the fitness studios on the second floor of the gym.

Tweek looked good today. Craig couldn’t tell if he looked _better_ , or if he was just thirstier than he had been when they had first met. He wore a tank singlet and yoga pants, and his hair was loose so it fell over his shoulders into the hollows above his collarbones. Craig made a conscious effort not to let his eyes wander from his face, but it wasn’t easy. Tweek sighed and hooked a thread of loose hair behind his ear.

“Did you warm up?” he asked. Craig shook his head.

“I walked here if that counts?”

“No. But it’s okay. We can do this for a warm up today instead.”

He pushed the large wooden box onto the AstroTurf, gave it a kick to check it was sturdy, and then crawled on top of it. He sat down with crossed legs, and looked at Craig expectantly.

“Push the box.” He said, “From here to there.” He pointed to the far end of the AstroTurf. Craig looked at the box, and the young man sitting on top of it.

“Are you going to get off?”

“Nuh-uh.”

Craig didn’t really know what to do with himself. He looked around the gym, as if he might be able to find some kind of explanation amongst strangers on rowing machines and exercise bikes, but unsurprisingly he found exactly nothing and Tweek just sat there waiting for him with an unsettlingly neutral expression on his face.

“You want me to push _you_ from here to there, you mean?”

“Yeah.”

“Uh... I don’t know if I can do that.” His eyes dropped to Tweek’s arms and legs despite himself, and he they looked solid as marble and dense as stone. How much would a body like that weigh? 170 pounds maybe? Tweek’s hands moved to grip his ankles folded under him, and he pulled his shoulders into a shrug.

“Give it a try.”

Craig wasn’t sure he was comfortable embarrassing himself like that, but he also didn’t want to look like an asshole and not even try. He drew a deep breath and shuffled forward to brace himself against the edge of the box. The faint smell of Tweek’s deodorant gave him a quiet thrill and he bowed his head to hide the fact his cheeks had turned bright pink. Focusing as best he could, Craig pushed with all the strength in his flimsy toothpick legs.

The box budged about ten inches, and then stopped. Craig released his breath in a huge groan and dropped onto his knees on the AstroTurf. The box became a blessing, a prop to lean against as he pulled himself together in the aftermath.

“Ohmygod.”

Tweek laughed and nudged his arm against Craig’s forehead.

“Try again. You can do this ok?”

“Like hell...”

Nevertheless, Craig pulled himself back to his feet again and tried again. This time, the box moved about a foot before he gave up, but the fact that he was able to make it this far was encouraging. Craig stood upright, and pushed his fringe off his face. He was starting to sweat a little, and his heart rate was beginning to lift, but as he looked down the AstroTurf to the far end he thought the most peculiar thing. Something he never would have thought of himself, two weeks before.

_Maybe I can do this_?

“Alright?” Tweek asked him, a single eyebrow raising in question. Craig nodded, flexing his wrists and returning to pushing position at the edge of the box. He took a deep breath, summoned all his energy, and pushed again.

The box slid over the AstroTurf, and this time as it started moving Craig didn’t stop in shock or allow himself to succumb to the desire to stop. Instead, he pushed even harder, and startled by the sudden speed of the box moving Tweek swore and grabbed onto the edge in case he found himself tumbling off. The box sped another seven feet, and it might have gone another three or four if Craig’s crappy old sneakers didn’t slip out from under him and with a squawk Craig tripped over and landed face down on the green plastic grass.

“Fucking Christ!”

“Oh shit Craig are you okay?”

The only thing Craig had really injured was his dignity. With a weak moan he pushed himself into sitting position and rolled his shoulders back. Tweek peered down at him over the edge of his box, and the same lock of hair he had tucked away before slipped loose and touched the side of his cheek.

“Are you okay?” he asked again, and Craig huffed.

“I feel like an idiot. How much do you weigh anyway?”

“Enough.” Tweek smiled and slid off the box to his feet. He offered Craig his hand, and Craig’s stomach dropped. He wiped his sweaty palm on his track pants before he took it and Tweek pulled him up with ease. “You got further than I thought you would.”

“How far did you think I would get?”

Tweek shrugged.

“In a month you will be able to push me all the way there and back. How’s your pulse?”

“Fast.”

“Are you warmed up?”

Craig chewed the inside of his cheek and pulled his arms closer to his sides. His armpits felt like swamps, and he hoped Tweek wouldn’t notice.

“A bit.”

“Good.” Tweek patted the top of the box in invitation for Craig to sit on it. “You want a ride?”

Craig absolutely did. He sat down, and Tweek smiled at him in a way that made Craig think he was going to melt. A shiver of desire passed over him. He had to avert his eyes and scold himself because god, How pathetic could he possibly even get? Tweek was way, _way_ out of his league. And besides, there were probably rules about hitting on clients. Even if he _was_ interested he would never-

Craig found his train of thought truncated by a sharp displacement of the box beneath him. He inhaled sharply, and grabbed onto the edges for dear life.

“Shit. Thanks for the warning.”

“Sorry.” Tweek laughed, and kept pushing as though he was having no trouble doing so. Which he probably wasn’t. “The sooner I get to the end the sooner you have to get off and hop on the Cross-trainer.”

Craig groaned.

“I hate the Cross-trainer. Frankly I’d rather keep doing this.”

“You won’t be able to do this until you get fitter I think. But you can get fitter faster if you use the Cross-trainer. And maybe cut back on all those ramen noodles?”

Craig rolled his eyes. The box came to a smooth halt, a few inches from the edge of the AstroTurf strip that was its destination, and Tweek stood up straight again. Craig got a great eye level view of his chest and upper arms, and they were glorious.

“I’m not so good at the food... thing. Cooking dinner, planning meals, you know?”

“Uh huh. Well, there’s plenty of information on the internet?”

“I know that. But it’s more kind of the _doing_ thing that gets me.”

Craig wondered if he should tell him that most of his ramen noodle intake was raw anyway, straight from the packet without so much as a glance at the flavour sachet. Laziness had always been a defining characteristic of Craig’s personality.

“Well you can’t _do_ it if you don’t know how, right?” Tweek looked at him strangely, as though he was thinking something he wasn’t sure he should say, and pulled his bottom lip under the point of his right canine tooth. It was very attractive of him, and Craig felt his heart (which had been starting to slow a little as he cooled off) speed up once more.

“... I guess.”

Tweek sighed and let all his weight drop back onto one leg. He folded his arms casually across his chest and turned his face upwards, to the TV monitor playing the same playlist of music videos over and over again. After a few seconds of this, he decided the thing on the screen was not worth his time.

“Seeing as you don’t like the Cross-trainer, how about we use the treadmill today? We can catch up on Cross-trainer stuff next time maybe. It’s okay.”

Craig thought this sounded like a great idea.

He was wrong.

 

...

 

Craig hoped that whoever it was who invented interval training was having a good time burning in hell.

The timer on the treadmill counted over to four minutes twenty seconds, Craig slammed his thumb down into the mode switch button so that the fast moving track beneath him slowed and he entered his forty second reprieve from sprinting. Tweek looked on with a neutral expression, as though he didn’t notice Craig’s wheezing or his shaking hands, or the way that his underarms were darkening the armpits of his shirt. It was embarrassing – even more so on account of the fact that Tweek did not acknowledge it. He allowed Craig ten seconds to catch his breath and ease into a comfortable powerwalk, before he spoke.

“How are you going?” he asked. Craig shook his head, not wanting to dignify that with a response. He felt like his lungs were on fire, like they were shrinking and shallow and about to crumble in his chest. His muscles were shivering on his bones, so that he felt weak kneed and numb below the waist. It was awful.

“Only two more to go.”

Craig groaned, eyes tracking to the counter on the machine and his heart sinking when he saw twenty of his forty seconds were up.

“I’m going to die.” He gasped, swiping his hand over his forehead and grimacing at how wet his hairline was. Tweek hummed mildly, as though this observation was of little interest to him, and cocked his head to the side. If Craig was paying attention, he might have noticed that the other man seemed a little nervous. Craig, however, was much too preoccupied to notice.

Only ten seconds left.

“I’ve been thinking,” Tweek’s eyes flicked to the counter, is hands sliding into his pockets as Craig set his jaw and tried to scrape together the final scraps of energy in his person. His fingers trembled as he reached for the settings button, preparing to switch back to the sprint setting when the timer ticked over, and he grunted in invitation for Tweek to speak on.

“About what?”

“About your diet and stuff.”

He cleared his thought politely, and Craig took that as an invitation to go ahead and switch the machine settings. He did so, and Tweek continued.

“Anyway, I have an idea. About how you can start to get your diet together.”

Craig was barely listening. He was too busy trying to force his wet-string legs to move fast enough to stay on the machine which laboured beneath him.

“I thought, what better way to show you how to eat than if I took you out for dinner sometime? That way, I can put together a food plan for you and make sure you have at least one decent meal this week.”

Two things happened at the conclusion of this sentence. The first thing was that Craig’s heart, already subject to intense physical stress brought on by high speed running, seemed to stop in his chest. The other was that he missed a step, his legs _actually_ giving way beneath him and sending him down onto the treadmill track with a terrific bang. Tweek yelled, but it did nothing, his sudden leap to shut off the machine using the emergency button came too late. Craig had already been sent flying across the gym floor at break neck speed, the entirely undignified position his body took on would not have looked unusual in a ragdoll. His head was spinning, his belly and the bare parts of his arms were smarting and stinging with carpet burn. The shock of being catapulted into a stationary heap on the floor was only secondary to the shock of what he _thought_ Tweek had just asked him.

“Oh my god!” Tweek sounded absolutely _mortified._ If everyone in the gym wasn’t staring after Craig’s misstep, they were certainly staring now Tweek was screaming from the highest eaves of his lungs. “Craig! Oh my god, please don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead. Please pleasepleaseplease...”

Craig wanted to tell him he wasn’t dead. He wasn’t dead, but he was still reeling and unable to make any noise come out his mouth. The ground... god the ground was so hard beneath him. Was the ground usually this unyielding? He couldn’t remember.

Warm hands, sticky with the sweat of anxiety upon them, hauled Craig into a sitting position, and still muttering prayers for Craig’s wellbeing Tweek reached for his face, pushing his sweaty hair aside and peering frantically into his eyes.

“Are you okay? Are you okay? Oh my god _please-“_

“I’m okay!” Craig managed, his motor control returning enough for him to push Tweek’s panicked hands aside. His trainer looked whiter than the hypothetical sheet, his lips and cheeks bloodless and his green eyes the diameter of quarters at least. It would have been funny, if Craig wasn’t still trying to process, still trying to understand....

_If I took you out to dinner sometime_

What did that mean? It couldn’t possibly be...

He was dizzy, and his open scrapes were stinging something demonic. At the fringe of his thoughts, Craig was aware of a strange voice asking them

_“Is he okay_ /”

“I sure hope so.”

Tweek drew back a little, still regarding Craig with huge, terrified eyes. His chest was rising and falling in a shallow pant. As though he was the one who had just been running intervals.

“My ass hurts.” Craig said, after a few seconds. “If you want to take me out for dinner I’m free on Thursday.”

He thought he might need the rest of the exercise session off.

 

...

 

Craig had intended to shower after his afternoon lecture, but instead he found himself arriving home and pulling out his laptop, eating a packet of raw noodles as he made a half assed attempt to clear his desk. He dumped his bag on the laundry pile by the door, and stumbled out of his timberland boots his parents had bought him last year for Christmas. After his laptop had finished booting, he sat down and logged into Facebook – the Wi-Fi in the dormitory was janky and had an unfortunate tendency to log him out every time he shut his computer down.

He polished off the noodle packet as the login screen gave way to his timeline, and the notification in the top right corner which informed him there had been some conversation in the group chat since he had been gone. He didn’t care. He had something important he needed to say, so he opened the chat and typed what he was thinking without bothering to go back and read what the others had been talking about.

CRAIG TUCKER

_I think my gym trainer asked me on a date yesterday_

He screwed up his empty noodle packet and tossed it toward the overflowing wastepaper bin in the corner. He missed, and it fell to the floor next to his boots. Under the desk, his knee jiggled impatiently as one by one the little read receipts popped up in his messenger screen. Clyde was the first one to start typing.

CLYDE DONOVAN

_You go to the gym? Wtf dude you used to take the piss out of me for working out in hschool!_

Craig huffed in annoyance, and bashed the keys as he typed his reply. He thought as he did that conversing via messenger was dreadfully dissatisfying, as he was unable to give Clyde a sharp kick under the table over the internet.

CRAIG TUCKER

_Youre missing the point dumbass._

TOKEN BLACK

_Yeah, dumbass. :P_

Craig sighed. If he didn’t get the conversation back on track, he knew this would devolve into a Clyde roasting session the likes of which hadn’t been seen since last Wednesday. He was halfway through typing a scathing reply when Jimmy added his insight to the conversation. It was much more helpful that Clyde’s.

JIMMY VALMER

_Is she hot?_

CRAIG TUCKER

_Hes ok._

He paused a few seconds, to allow everyone in the chat to read it. Then he continued.

_I think hes way out of my league._

Craig chewed his bottom lip, a flutter of unease in his stomach as he realised for the first time that he was admitting that it all felt too good to be true. Yesterday, he had felt like he was floating as he walked down the street, but after a restless night and a long morning thinking it over, Craig realised that the more he examined the situation the less and less it seemed to add up.

How small was the chance, that of all the trainer in all the gyms in the whole of Boston, Craig would find himself paired with one who was not only incredibly handsome and incredibly nice, but also may have been on the higher end of the Kinsey scale. Was this simply a case of Craig reading too far into things? Was he trying too hard to see some kind of attraction that wasn’t there at all? Craig thought as his hands hovered over the keyboard, and he waited on the edge of his seat for the panel of compatriots to reply, that he didn’t actually know anything _about_ Y. F. Tweak at all. He didn’t know if he had a girlfriend, or how old he was... shit. Craig didn’t even know what the ‘Y’ stood for! He swallowed the anxious lump in his throat and saw that Token was starting to type a reply.

TOKEN BLACK

_If he’s a gym trainer, he’s almost certainly out of your league._

For some reason, reading this really didn’t help. Craig scowled, and waited to hear a response from the other two.

CLYDE DONOVAN

_Dude, your left hand is out of your league._

JIMMY VALMER

_He??? What do you mean?? Is he some kind of gymnastics twink?_

Craig remembered that Jimmy’s belief in his bisexuality had always been ambivalent. One of those ‘I’ll believe it when I see it’ kind of things. He shook his head, even though the other three couldn’t see it, and replied.

CRAIG TUCKER

_Thanks for the vote of confidence guys. This has really helped me out._

There was a pause, and then Jimmy started to reply. Craig didn’t have high hopes, so he was surprised when he read what it was he had to say.

JIMMY VALMER

_If he asked you out, then he must not think hes that far out your league._

CRAIG TUCKER

_Well thats the thing. I doint even know if he asked me out at all._

His friends seemed confused to hear this. Craig cracked his knuckles, and prepared to explain. He knew he was probably going to have to start from the start, although he might skimp on the details of his emotional situation, and that meant conjuring a veritable wall of text which accurately treated every delicate facet of his situation.

Instead, he wrote

_He said he would take me to a restaurant for dinner on Saturday. So he can show me how to plan meals and record my diet._

The only response he received, after about two minutes of nothing, was from Clyde.

CLYDE DONOVAN

_HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!_

CRAIG TUCKER

_Fuckin rude._

And across the entire continental united states, Craig could feel Token rolling his eyes.

TOKEN BLACK

_That’s not helpful at all Clyde_

CLYDE DONOVAN

_How is that not helpful? Im pointing out how thick Craig would have to be to believe that could be anything OTHER than a request for a date. Thats the most awkward thing ive ever heard in my life! Holy fuck_

JIMMY VALMER

_Clyde is right. Thats obviously him asking you on a date. Although its a stupid kind of a way to do it if you asked me_

Craig felt suddenly defensive.

CRAIG TUCKER

_No one asked you. Also fuck you clyde. I dont think you are taking this very seriously._

Craig’s palms were sweating as he typed it. He didn’t like the implication that he was bad at measuring approaches of the romantic variety. Good thing Token was such a mom – he was skilled at diffusing arguments between the group even from afar.

TOKEN BLACK

_We are all taking you seriously Craig, and we all think it sounds like he was asking you out. I mean, if he wasn’t he would have just explained the whole diet thing to you at the gym right?_

Craig decided this sounded like it might be correct. Still, he wasn’t convinced. Tweek was just _too good_. Too handsome to be single. Too amicable to be anything other than a nice guy. And yes, Craig had to admit he was awkward

_(the mugs all smashed except for one)_

But so what? He was probably just nervous. Craig could be kind of an intimidating person from time to time.

CLYDE DONOVAN

_Whats his name or facebook? I want to look this guy up._

Craig hadn’t thought to do such a thing himself. The notion of doing so made his skin crawl. He shared the only name he knew, which was Y. F. Tweak, and jiggled his leg even harder under the desk. The entire piece of furniture was rattling in sympathy of his anxiety. There was a pause, in which three ‘message read’ signatures appeared in the messenger box. And then the ellipsis which indicated typing from Token Black.

TOKEN BLACK

_Dude. Don’t worry. He’s not out of your league at all_ _J_

Craig was still nervous, all the same.

 

...

 

Craig stood outside Hey Ramen dressed in a duffel coat and scarf, his breath fogging on the cold evening air as he waited for Tweek to message him and let him know why he was twenty minutes late. With every second passing, Craig felt himself grow redder and redder, and the colour rising in his cheeks was only half on account of the cold. He checked his phone, and made sure he had the right time and place. He considered sending him a text, but didn’t want to admit he had come if Tweek had just been setting him up for some kind of joke.

He was just about to give up, and head home, when a familiar throat-clearing sound interrupted his train of thought.

“Craig?” He didn’t sound sure that the boy in the scarf and jacket was who he was looking for. Craig spun around to look at him, and relief flooded him from the tips of his fingers to the ends of his toes.

Tweek _had_ come. Thank god. He had been thinking as he stood and waited that he was clearly going to have to quit training because he would never be able to look at the guy again without killing him.

“Yeah. Hi. I came.” He buried his chin in his scarf, and Tweek smiled uncomfortably as Craig looked him over.

Same blonde hair, even under the unnatural yellowish light that poured through the restaurant window onto the street. Same green eyes, even if they were shadowed and difficult to meet. Same well-formed body in a flannel shirt and blue jeans.

“Sorry I’m late.” He said, and he looked as though he probably had an explanation to offer, but Craig was too relieved to care to hear it.

“No problem. Aren’t you cold?”

Tweek laughed, and his breath turned silver as he did.

“Nah I’ve never been susceptible to cold.”

Craig supposed this was a blessing, of a sort. Tweek cocked his head in question toward the door of the noodle shop.

“Are you ready to eat?”

“Sure. But I thought you wanted to show me food that _wasn’t_ ramen for a change?”

An expression of confusion passed over his face.

“What?”

“You. You wanted to take me to dinner so you could show me how not to eat ramen all the time.”

Tweek turned visibly red. Craig suddenly remembered what Token had said

_(that’s obviously him asking you on a date_ )

And his legs went weak. Weaker than they had ever felt doing exercises.

“Oh. Shit. That’s right.”

His trainer looked like he could have used some guidance. It was quickly becoming idiosyncratic, the hopeless and surprised way he seemed to fumble for his thoughts.

“Shit. Shit shit shit...”

“It’s ok.” Craig’s voice waivered a little. He pushed his hands deep into his jacket pockets and clenched them tight. “We can go here. I like this place, anyway.”

“Are you sure?”

“Am I sure? You’re the nutrition guy.”

Tweek looked stricken by that accusation. He shook his head.

“This is fine.”

But Craig thought he didn’t really believe it.

The smell of hot meat and teriyaki made Craig’s mouth water the minute he got inside. The sound of people dining, sitting in tall stools by the windows and sharing iced teas over low tables in the middle of the shop floor gave the whole space and very cosy atmosphere. As far as restaurants went, Hey Ramen noodle shop was certainly somewhere in the category of small. Tweek looked around as though he had never been somewhere like this before, staring in wide eyed winder at the decoration and the posters advertising sake and beer pinned to the lamp lit walls.

“Do we seat ourselves?” he asked nervously, and Craig shook his head in response, skirting around a table of three and making a beeline for the little counter at the very back of the store.

“We order first,” he said, gesturing to the menu overhead. He already knew what he wanted – the same meal he got every time.

“Beef udon noodles and a bowl of rice.”

Tweek heard him order, and he saw the lady at the counter nod and write this down, and if he had something critical to say about Craig’s expected massive carb intake he didn’t say anything. When the woman behind the counter asked what he wanted, he fumbled, but finally he managed to order a sushi plate for one and sit down.

Craig had secured them a two seater, against the wall, and as soon as his ass was in the seat he started wrestling off his bulky, rustling jacket. It was far too warm in the restaurant to be wearing so many layers.

“Cold night huh?” Tweek asked him, in the tone of voice particular to someone who was not very practiced at making small talk. Craig smiled, trying not to reveal his crooked teeth, and hitched his coat around on the back of his chair.

“Uh huh.”

He placed his hands demurely on the table in front of them, mirroring Tweek’s stance as discretely as he possibly could. Tweek nodded, pretending to be comfortable with the silence they were sliding into. Under the table, his leg was jiggling furiously – it was making the whole table vibrate, and Craig wondered if that was usual or if Tweek was just particularly nervous tonight.

“... Are you okay?” Craig asked him, and Tweek turned visibly red. His eyes lighted on something to the left of Craig’s shoulder, and whatever it was must have been captivating because he couldn’t turn his gaze onto Craig’s face from that point onward.

“Of course! I’m fine. It’s just... been such a long time since I’ve been out for dinner with someone, you know?”

Craig laughed at this, and nodded. It was comforting to know they were on the same page about this. The idea filled him with that particular sensation like butterflies in his stomach.

“Same here. Good thing this isn’t a date.”

The silence which proceeded this statement however, was tangibly awkward. Tweek cleared his throat and looked down at the table. Craig thoroughly wished he had never opened his fool mouth.

The minutes ticked by, and all around them customers shared chatter and enjoyed noodles. Beneath his forearms, Craig observed that their table was still shaking, Tweek’s leg bouncing like he was trying to generate heat by the shear kinetic force of his own muscles.

This was going bad. Really bad. Craig didn’t have any idea what he was supposed to talk about, and it was obvious by this point in time that Tweek didn’t either. What had Craig been expecting? Some kind of instant connection, followed by an in-depth heart-to-heart about their lives and every moment which had lead up until now?

He hadn’t thought about it. He had been too busy trying to accept this was _real_ to wonder about what he was supposed to say when he made it here. Perhaps, he was just going to have to try initiating conversation repeatedly, and hope that at some point in the future, it happened.

“How come you were so late to meet me today?” he asked, because it was the first thing which occurred to him and he didn’t realise how accusatory and rude that sounded outside of the confines of his own head. Tweek’s leg stopped jiggling, and he looked mortified.

“Oh. That. I’m really, _really_ sorry-“

“Yeah, I know, it’s fine it’s just... I was just wondering is all. I don’t have any strong feelings about it either way. Or rather, I _do_ have strong feelings about the fact that you came, but not about the fact that you were late. Does that make sense?”

Tweek laughed awkwardly, and Craig shrunk a little inside.

“Uh, yes. I think so? But I’m still sorry – I was late because someone at the gym had an accident. I was taking a class and a guy with low blood pressure overworked himself. He fainted.”

“He what?”

“He fainted.” Tweek gave him a sheepish smile and hooked a lock of hair behind one of his ears. “We were running through a few exercises and his eyes rolled back and thump. On the floor. It happens from time to time, but still it’s absolutely terrifying to watch.”

He leaned in closer, eyes darting briefly around the restaurant to make sure no-one could hear.

“I always panic when it happens – you can never tell until you check their pulse if they just passed out, or if they are dead. And I don’t want that kind of responsibility on my hands honestly.”

For some reason, Craig thought that was the funniest thing he had ever had the good fortune to hear.

Maybe it was the tense atmosphere, or the idea of the lawsuit that would ensue should some elderly subject pass into the arms of god during a particularly rigorous set, but whatever caused the statement to tickle him just so had him breaking into laughter so loud and hearty it seemed at first to take Tweek aback. Tweek leaned back in his seat and stared at him wide eyed, and Craig thought as he struggled to curb his amusement that he felt like a complete and utter ass. After a few seconds of shock, however, Tweek’s face broke into a grin as well and soft, guilty giggles came out of him.

“Shhh!” he insisted, “It’s not funny. Can you _imagine_ the paperwork I would have to do in that situation.”

“It would be something, I am sure. What class was it you were teaching, anyway? Yoga?”

“Boxing.”

“Boxing?!”

Craig probably wouldn’t have guessed that.

Tweek shrugged, and the colour which filled his cheeks was visible in the warm restaurant light.

“Yeah.”

“Are you fucking with me?” Craig asked, and Tweek wiggled in his chair, uncomfortable. “Since when have _you_ been a boxer? Not that I’m making claims to know you or anything. But honestly you don’t really seem like the type.”

“The type?”

“Yeah. The type. You know... tall and bulky? Lots of neck and not much leg. Usually, buzz cut hair.”

Tweek touched his own hair self-consciously and Craig became convinced he was lying. No way could this guy, petite and handsome and clearly highly strung, be any good at _boxing_. Any opponent would be able to knock him down flat in an instant, regardless of how many pullups he might have to his name.

“I didn’t think there was a type,” he murmured. “I mean, it’s not like I’m a professional or anything... just teaching. Balance and speed and stuff. That kind of thing...”

“Are you serious?”

“Of course I am.”

“You’re not lying to me?”

“Why would I do that?”

“Look me in the eye and tell me you aren’t lying to me.”

If Tweek was serious, Craig was going to have to double his gut-size to accommodate the butterflies that would occupy it. The idea that he could be even stronger, even more elite than he looked in rugby shorts and a wind breaker was almost too much for Craig’s delicate heart.

Tweek gnawed his bottom lip, his eyes lighting on the details on the tablecloth and avoiding meeting Craig’s at all costs.

“Alright,” he said, after a few seconds of not saying anything. “You got me. I was lying.”

Craig felt his heart sink in disappointment.

“Was it a yoga class?” he asked, and Tweek looked up and frowned at him in a way that made him think that he was coming across audibly as deflated of let-down.

“What? No? I wasn’t lying about the boxing, I was lying about the guy passing out. I was late because I was worried you wouldn’t meet me. And then I’d have to quit my job and change my name to avoid ever seeing you again. Sorry to think badly of you, but I was so worried you only agreed to come out with me as a joke.”

His eyes dropped to the table again. Craig thought that _he_ might have passed out. But then he thought of all of the stress that would cause his company, and the effort required on his own part to grow light headed, and thought that idea was fucking stupid. He swallowed the lump in his throat, and sat up straight.

“So you’re a boxer,” he repeated, “Who works taking classes and clients at the gym?”

Tweek nodded.

“Weird career move for a mediocre architecture student, right?”

Craig decided he could go for further elaboration on this.

Their food arrived when they were part way through discussing their academic backgrounds, and over noodles Craig learned that Tweek was never particularly good in school, and suffered from horrible anxiety, which found him being referred to the same doctor that Craig had seen in order to start on the pro-active physical treatment plan which would eventually consume his whole life. Although it didn’t even come close to _fixing_ his issues, he had found that learning self-management and mindful living had helped him to deal better with daily life, and although his optimism about Craig’s situation was obscured by reassurances that there would never be a magical solution, and that he can’t expect his whole life to change completely just because he was able to lift a few weights and eat a few vegetables, there was something much more genuine and _achievable_ about it than there was in sitting on a sofa in the counsellors office listening to her insist that one day he would wake up and everything would be okay. Tweek was down to earth, and honest, and Craig almost believed him when he said that things would get better. Even though sometimes, it felt like things were getting worse.

 They left the noodle shop full of carbs, and comfortably discussing Craig’s experiences in fitness up until now. They passed the cinema, the smell of popcorn mingling with the smell of the Chinese food store right next door, and made their way across the park which separated the central business district from the university dorms. The cars in the streets were bright and cheerful, and there was no shortage of people out wandering the streets. Craig almost felt uplifted as they came to stop at a set of traffic lights, and the entire skyline before them was spread out in lights like a mirror that reflected the starry sky. Tweek nodded, and assured him he had also hated baseball, when he was younger. Their conversation lulled, and then Craig realised. They were heading towards his house without even knowing it, their breath cold and silver glitter on the freezing air. He hadn’t even asked where Tweek was going – which way was his house, and how was he getting there? Did he think that Craig wanted to take him home?

Craig felt his stomach turn over, he had thought it before he could stop himself and despite reminding himself that this ‘not-date’ wasn’t like _that_ he couldn’t get the idea from his head. His voice caught, and Tweek noticed. He cocked his head, edging closer to allow a jogger and their Samoyed to pass them by.

“Are you okay?” he asked, concerned.

Craig nodded.

“Sure. But uh... where I live isn’t that far from here. Up ahead.”

“You live in the dorms?” Tweek asked him, surprised to hear it. “I live only two blocks over. I can walk you home if you like?”

“Oh. Sure.”

Craig wasn’t sure what he was expecting. They walked the rest of the walk together in silence, and Craig’s legs felt like rubber the whole way there.

The dormitory was a large imposing building, which had started life as an office block and ten or so years previously had been refitted to accommodate the university’s growing student population. The height meant that in the daylight, it blocked the sunlight from reaching the ground, and the dated architecture of the facade always managed to make Craig’s heart sink upon approaching it, even if he had been feeling quite cheerful before that point in time. The main foyer, which Craig had access to using his scan card attached to his keyring, was a fluorescent beacon in the otherwise dark night, and two streets over from the closest main avenue the place was quiet, almost haunting, and Craig’s heart sunk even _lower_ than it usually did upon reaching the pathway to access it.

He stopped walking, wiping his sweaty hands on his jeans and clearing his throat. Tweek pauses his stroll, and looks back at him in confusion.

“This is where I get off.” He said.

“Isn’t the front door around the other side?”

“Yeah, but I can get in here at the residents foyer.”

A cold breeze flitted down the street, and Craig shivered. Tweek’s expression shifted slightly, and it was hard to make put in the dim but the high points of his nose and cheeks were limned in bright white from the glow leaking through the glass foyer doors, and it gave his face an almost supernatural beauty.

“Oh, alright then. I guess this is it then huh?”

“Yeah.”

Craig smiled tightly, not trusting himself to show his teeth in case his heart fell out between them and caused him great humiliation. Tweek sniffed, sliding his hands into his jeans pockets, and swung all his weight onto his left leg.

The awkwardness was thick, and Craig couldn’t just _leave_ like this. Was he supposed to say something at this time?  He tried to think of how he ought to proceed, and very nearly came about to asking him directly if he should just head inside of if Tweek wanted him for anything else this evening. Tweek, however, was the one who broke the silence first.

“... I’m sorry,” he said, and it took Craig by surprise at first as it seemed a little out of context. “I need to tell you something.”

“You do?”

“Uh huh. And it’s kind of embarrassing so I’m just going to spit it out. When I asked you out for dinner, I didn’t _mean_ in a date kind of way. But I think, when you mentioned it at dinner, I realised that I _did_ mean it in a date kind of way, because I actually kind of like you a lot, and I’m sorry if that’s weird or if I make you uncomfortable because I know. It’s creepy to like a client like that.”

“... Oh.”

And by this time, Craig double didn’t know what to say.

He wondered if he was dreaming, or if this was real, and if this was real then how it had eventuated like this. Craig couldn’t remember the last time he had experienced mutual attraction, and he realised in that moment that he had been at a point in his life where he thought he never would. If the two of them hadn’t been alone he might have thought that Tweek was in fact talking to someone else.

Tweek looked appropriately guilty, like he was about to choke on the lump at the back of his throat, and Craig rubbed his sweaty hands on the insides of his pockets.

“Well,” he tried, hoping to sound calm and causal but ending up sounding more like he was about to faint, “I mean... its only weird if you make it weird, right?”

“And have I made it weird?”

“Not yet.”

Craig’s eyes flickered to Tweek’s mouth, an unconscious expression of desire that Tweek must have had no trouble picking up on. Craig might have been embarrassed, if he had had the time to realise what he was expressing – the fact he hadn’t been kissed for years was written all over his face, and with a suddenness that might have seemed ridiculous to him earlier that morning this extended fast came to a stop.

Tweek had to stand on his toes to reach, but somehow as Tweek lead him in a slow, deep kiss, Craig found that he felt small in comparison.

...

“I’m going to say which hand you use, and when I do you need to jab like we practiced, alright?”

“Right.”

Craig didn’t think this was going to go well at all.

He thought he should probably tell Tweek this, but Craig wasn’t really sure how.

It wasn’t because Craig didn’t think he was capable of boxing - although he knew he wouldn’t be great he thought he could at least throw a decent punch - and it wasn’t because Tweek was bad at teaching him how to box. It was more a matter of anxiety and nerves. Tweek hadn’t mentioned their dinner since they had parted outside of Craig’s dormitory half a week ago, and after spending sleepless nights tossing and turning, trying to tell himself it was _real_ and not just some fantastic figment of his imagination, Craig had turned up that morning at training only to be greeted with a lukewarm smile and a brisk handshake.

“Hope you are feeling alert,” Tweek said stiffly. “We are going to do some boxing today.”

There was something distinctly anti-climactic about it all, and Craig wasn’t sure where he was supposed to stand.

The question had been hovering just behind his lips, but every time he went to ask Tweek about what they were supposed to do next, he lost confidence. Tweek lead him patiently through some exercises, in the same slightly awkward way he had instructed him when they first met, and many times Craig had failed to follow instruction thanks to his distraction. Tweek looked considerably more attractive than usual - his arms seemed so finely sculpted, his posture so elegant and effortless even if his voice and mannerisms were not, and although his body language was guarded Craig thought that overall he looked composed. Craig probably looked composed too, from the outside. But inside he was a seething mass of nerves.

Was he _sure_ he hadn’t completely dreamed everything that had happened?

Tweek mounted the boxing pad onto his arm and placed himself in front of Craig, so the pair of them were standing face to face. His fingers looked bitten to the quick, but he tightened the velcro straps on his arm as if using them normally caused him no pain. His stance, in front of Craig, was low and sturdy, but Craig noticed with a rising wave of nausea that he didn’t seem willing to meet his eye.

“Are you ready?” he asked, vision trained resolutely on Craig’s shoulder.

“Ready,” Craig said, tightening his fists in the sweaty boxing gloves he was wearing. Tweek had provided him with them – borrowed equipment from the locked training cupboard behind the reception desk. He tried not to think about how many other people had worn the gloves before today.

“Right.”

It took Craig a moment to realise this was an instruction, not a conformation. He pushed forward his right hand, hurriedly to cover the fact his mind had been elsewhere. Tweek’s eyes fluttered as the glove contracted with the pad.

“Right,” he said again, his expression unchanging. “Be sure to punch hard this time. With all your strength.”

Craig tried, but his arm felt like it was made of nylon. When the punch landed it made a pathetic sounding slap.

“Hit Harder.”

“You know I’m trying!”

“Left.”

Craig responded with a jab from the left hand side. This one landed harder, maybe because he was mad that Tweek would imply he wasn’t trying, and Tweek nodded minutely in approval.

“Right. Left.”

Craig followed instructions, with all the force he could manage. The contact was satisfying somewhere, deep down in his core. Maybe he was starting to wish he was punching the man in front of him, instead of the arm pad?

How _dare_ Tweek try and pretend like nothing had happened? Craig had woken up last night convinced he could still feel Tweek’s mouth burning on his. Had the incident really meant nothing to him at all?

“Good one Craig. Much better. But you’re going to have to try and move faster.”

Craig thought he was already punching as fast as he could manage. He threw his left fist forwards with maximum force, and missed the pad so badly he fell off balance. Tweek had to jerk to the side to avoid being hit, and Craig only just managed to avoid landing on his face on the mat.

With a frustrated groan, Craig raised himself out of the boxing stance and flung his arms petulantly by his side.

_“This is stupid!”_ he told him loudly, with a great amount of emphasis and force. “I didn’t even want boxing training in the first place!’

Tweek looked alarmed, even shocked. He erected himself and stepped back, and the bewilderment on his features only served to make Craig madder.

“Uh, Okay?”

He tried to remove the arm pad, but much to Craig’s satisfaction he struggled. For someone so well exercised, Tweek was still incredibly clumsy, and for someone like Craig this was a small victory.

“What do you want to do instead?”

“I don’t care!”

Craig was lying – what he really wanted was to punch Tweek right in the face. Was he really not going to say _anything_? God knew that something of such importance couldn’t be the responsibility of someone like Craig. Craig had been the passive bystander in all of this. The courted, not the courtier. He told himself he didn’t want to be the desperate, whining one who got too attached so quickly, but even as he did some part of him knew he was clingy. He needed validation. And he was frankly infuriated that Tweek was refusing to give it to him.

Had Tweek simply forgotten? Had it escaped his memory, what they had exchanged that evening? Clearly he hadn’t been plagued with dreams of it. With wandering ghosts of recollection that interrupted the course of his days. Craig might have envied this freedom, and this separation from the emotional facts, but for the time being he was too indignant. And of course, he had no coherent ideas about how he should express his rage.

Should he just say something?

“Uh... okay?”

Tweek looked a little dejected. He finally succeeded in removing the boxing pad, and allowed Craig to yank off his gross gloves in impatience.

“Do you want me to just roll you out and call it a day?”

“Fine. Sure. I guess.”

Maybe he would have an opportunity to mention their date, if they were going to be sitting on the mat privately, Tweek slowly twisting every single kinked muscle in Craig’s body. Craig strode across the gym to the rolling mats by the wall while Tweek packed up his gear, and with a deep sigh he sat down cross legged by the massive mirror, which spanned the width of the gym, as if he was undisturbed by the presence of his double.

Craig had worn a slightly more relaxed tank top today. That was a mistake. The fading acne scarring on his upper arms was embarrassingly obvious in the fluorescent white light of indoors. He rubbed his bare shoulders, wondering of now Tweek was seeing him clearly, he was disgusted with what he had allowed himself to fall into doing. Craig knew he wasn’t exactly America’s next top Hotshot, but he hadn’t thought himself quite as unappealing as he looked when he studied his reflection. If Tweek _was_ trying to pretend it hadn’t happened, then Craig supposed he really couldn’t blame him.

He shifted his eyes a little, to the reflection of the man approaching from the office on the other side of the gym. Tweek was carrying the usual foam roller, walking in the lilting manner that made Craig’s insides feel like thin soup, and suddenly Craig was overwhelmed by a sense of debilitating self-consciousness. He could smell his sweat on the surface of his skin, and feel the heavy bruises in the crescents under his eyes, and he thought very forcibly that actually, he _didn’t_ want Tweek anywhere near him. Not now. Not when he was feeling thoroughly slighted and thoroughly responsible.

He pulled himself to his feet hurriedly, just as Tweek arrived within speaking distance and asked “... are you okay? You look pale. Is something wrong?”

“Nothing. I just feel kind of sick suddenly. Is it okay if I go back home?”

Tweek seemed puzzled by this, maybe even disappointed considering how keenly he was carrying the roller under his arm. He paused for a moment, testing Craig’s question to see if it would yield any further explanation, but after it didn’t he heaved a sigh and brushed his hand over his hair to smooth fly aways back into his bun.

“Yeah, of course. Do you want a drink or something?”

“No thanks, I’m fine.”

This was a lie, but in truth in that moment Craig couldn’t remember the last time he really felt fine.

...

Craig stood in the shower watching the water spiral down the drain, his muscles hurting in the uniquely exhausted way that happened after he had spent even fifteen minutes working out. The fluorescent lighting in the bathroom made his head ache dully, it illuminated the mist from the searing spray of the shower and made Craig feel like he was swaddled in hot wet wool. As he rubbed soap tenderly over the back of his calves, lathering the body wash on his upper legs and belly and ignoring the uneven pattern on his skin, Craig’s mind was distant and ambling down long trails of loneliness and disappointment. Although, on the other hand, he thought as he hooked his loofah over the shower tap, what else was there to be expected?

Tweek was his trainer, with a perfect fit body and a perfect angel face. Craig was just Craig, tall and pudgy in places he shouldn’t be. He was an embarrassment – he supposed he couldn’t really blame Tweek for changing his mind.

Craig’s hand pressed inside his thighs, where his skin was warm and wet and smooth, unlike the skin over the fronts of his upper legs. His other arm braced him against the shower wall, and with his forehead falling against it underneath the flow of the shower he wondered if Tweek had decided he had made a mistake _after_ he had kissed him, and the two had broken apart, or if it had been something which had happened during. Maybe he realised how gross Craig was, when he tasted his mouth.

With a miserable sigh, Craig’s hand slid higher, his thumb caressing the shape of his balls and pressing around to find the places which sent pleasant heat spreading up his spine. The sensation was an only a little comforting, but certainly it was pleasurable. He bit the inside of his cheek and thought that at least Tweek couldn’t see him now. Craig had already been embarrassed within an inch of his life around him, and the idea of Tweek suspecting that Craig might be _this_ kind of guy, touching himself idly in the hopes it would provide some comfort, made Craig want to be sick.

He thought, absently, as he rubbed his face against the bracing arm and circled his hands around the base of his dick, that he ought to be ashamed of himself. Not only for expecting that Tweek might have wanted to sweep him into his arms the moment he arrived in the gym that morning, but also for still feeling a thrill of desire when he thought of the way Tweek’s body moved, smooth and effortlessly like a glossed machine. Like he was naturally perfect, naturally fluid. Like he was a piece of art sculpted by a master of mechanisms, and maybe technically he _was_ because Tweek had honed himself to this point, using all the self-discipline and inner strength he had. Craig envied that, as much as he longed to feel the results sliding against him. He caressed the length of his cock, allowing it to harden against his lower belly, and moaned quietly into the bend of his elbow.

It felt so good, but it didn’t feel _right_ , and when Craig closed his eyes he saw Tweek sitting across from him at the table smiling sheepishly into his sushi and talking about how, when he was younger, the only thing he wanted to do was be an architect. He liked mecchano, and Legos, and the perfect meditation of creating things. And as Craig beheld what he had ultimately created, a marvellous edifice of muscle and hair and bone, he must have slipped so smoothly into infatuation he barely even noticed until right now. Was Tweek even _aware_ of how Craig saw him? Was Craig always as obvious as he felt? Craig was conflicted, as to which of these notions he preferred. As much as he hated the idea of Tweek knowing Craig was obsessed with him, he hated the idea that Tweek thought he thought nothing of it just as much. And he definitely didn’t like the idea that somewhere out there, oblivious to Craig’s woe, Tweek was touching himself in _his_ shower and letting his lips curl around a name much nicer than _Craig,_ his mind caressing the contours of a body much more within the vicinity of his ‘league’.

Disheartened by this, Craig dropped his hand and stood upright, looking into the glaring bright lights overhead until he started to see faint and shadowy rings edging his vision. He focused on feeling himself go soft, on the sensation of water on his sore muscles and the way that between his legs and deep behind his navel he was cramping, as though someone had removed something vital from his innermost core. His hand felt for the shower leaver, pushing down and shutting the water off so he was left wet and shivering in the cold bathroom air.

He stepped out of the shower, pulled some clothes on without drying off, and shuffled back into his bedroom where he allowed himself to fall into his bed face forward. He wondered if he might check Facebook, and see if Tweek had messaged him there, but he knew deep down that if he checked, he was doomed to be disappointed – Tweek wasn’t going to message him about this. Perhaps the two of them would never talk about it again. Craig tried to remember the evening they had shared dinner, attempting to pinpoint the moment Tweek had decided he wasn’t interested. It must have been after he kissed him – what person in their right mind would kiss someone they were no longer interested in courting? But after that, Craig knew there had only been a very short period before Craig went inside. Had he done something so terribly _wrong_ between then and now? Something he wasn’t even aware of? He wouldn’t put it past himself to fuck up like that. Craig did have a tendency to inspire everything to go horribly wrong.

Craig sighed into his pillow, before breathing back in the smell of his own face and hair. He thought it wasn’t too bad a perfume, although that may just have been because it was familiar. He thought that Tweek always smelled nice when Craig was around him, always grassy and earthy and always warm. Craig _ached_ for him. He wished he could just talk to him, that he could find it in himself to do something about it.

But Craig had never been very good at expressing his emptions. Instead, he lay there on his bed and pined silently, and his last conscious thought was that things might look better in the morning, after a long nights sleep.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really had to end this chapter here in order to avoid a fast devolution into drama and angst. this is supposed to be a happy story!
> 
> only one chapter left to go...

**Author's Note:**

> Say,  
> have any of you heard the good news about long haired tweek???


End file.
